So I angered Susie today by going off on yet another rant about the Steelers and their 5 network affiliates, two newspapers, and 12-15 radio stations. Not to mention all the advertising that they've managed to buy on people's windows, cars, etc.
As I was driving home, I had to switch off three stations or risk having the "Here We Go" song stuck in my head. So by the time I got home to my mother-in-law (who was babysitting) I was plumb Steelered out.
Now, I have the patience of a saint (alright, hold it down), but I was trying to figure out what's been setting me off recently. After getting Gage and heading out to do a little shopping, I saw a sign at the Mall at Robison.

"Due to overwhelming requests, Mall Management has decided to close the mall at 5:00 on February 5th for the Superbowl."

That was finally the last straw. I almost went to lodge a complaint at the service desk. Yes, the Steeler's made the Superbowl and 99.9% of the city seems to be ecstatic. The other .1% would like to crawl into an underground bunker to reappear on the 6th and check for our shadows to see if there's going to be 6 more weeks of the black and gold.

So, my hackles were raised pretty much all day and passing person after person in Steeler's garb did nothing to appease my attitude. And then, it finally clicked as I neared the end of the mall and saw the All-Christmas store having their yearly liquidation sale. It was the same feeling of resentment I had toward the Christmas holiday and music on the radio.
That's when the epiphany struck. It's not Christmas that upsets me, it's not even Christmas music that upsets me. It's not that the Steelers made the Superbowl and the Pens are in the toilet bowl (though that doesn't help). What bothers me most of all is the abject lack of respect for the American consumer.

That's right, I said lack of respect.

The powers-that-be have decided that simply telling you once and letting you make up your own mind is not sufficient. It has to be crammed down your throat over and over until it becomes a pre-programmed second nature. And I realized that I reject all attempts to make me think what people want me to think. It's this constant barrage that makes me dislike normally happy events like Christmas and yes, even the Superbowl. It's like holding a conversation with the egotistical Ivy League student who works in the fact that he graduated from Yale at least four times in a three minute conversation even though he's wearing a Yale sweatshirt, Yale hat, and a Yale ring, with a Yale license plate on his car and a bumper stick that says, "Go Yale!"
The first time it comes up, you're mildly impressed...by the end of the conversation you want to beat him with a polo mallet. It's like the amazing marketing campaigns for movies like "Monster's Ball" and "A Beautiful Mind", both of which sucked, but for some reason got tremendous word of mouth due to the all out media blitz.
Christmas has gotten so bad that it occurred to me that with the exception of getting gifts for Gage I was ready to scrap the whole thing. And as any parent of the child that has grasped the opening of presents can attest, the look on the child's face is priceless, so it's a lot to give up in the midst of the complete media blitz. The Superbowl passed this point a while ago, but since Pittsburgh has only had a cursory involvement in years past, it was slightly easier to ignore. This year, with direct involvement, it's beyond the point of bearable. Even some football rabid fans that I know are crying, "Enough, already!" It's a running gag in our office whenever a piece of actual news slips through. A couple days ago, there was an 80 year old man who was out on his roof (it was never discovered why). His wife was out on the roof with him. He slipped and started to go over the side. She made a grab for him and they both went over. He lived, but she passed away from the injuries sustained in the fall. This was a sad story and would normally have been given a space in the run of hometown news. However, it was barely a blip on the one affiliate that did cover it. We realized that if they had been wearing Steeler's sweatshirts and hanging a terrible towel on the Steeler's mannequin resting in the black and gold striped armchair motif on the roof of their recently repainted black and gold house, they would have been the lead story on all the major networks.
So, it's not that I hate football, I'm very apathetic toward the sport. It's not that I'm against the Steelers, most seasons they're barely registering in our household. I can't stand being forced to feel a certain way by a media that's so blinded to what is or is not news it's simply become the PR extension for whatever event is going on at the moment. That's why my new favorite holiday is Arbor Day.

Got hosed at work again today. My project manager called in sick so that I had to deal with all of the wonderful client issues that cropped up today. And, to top it off, there was some sort of issue with another program that another team was working on. It had to be tested on a dial-up connection. Apparently, mine is the only computer with a working dial-up connection. So, every couple of hours, I had to stop what I was doing, and connect to a 56k dial-up to try and watch a video program that wouldn't download properly. All in all, a crappy day. So, now I sit at home and try and catch up on my own work since I spent most of the day doing someone else's.
This article caught what little attention was diverted today. It's very true. Children's songs tend to burrow in and they aren't the only ones. It's interesting to see how the mind functions when it comes to the mystery of melody and lyrics. Meet my childhood neighbor for any length of time and surely one of the slightly less embarrassing stories that she'll regale you with is the fact that when I was about 3 or 4, I would spend hours on their porch singing into a magic marker with a piece of yarn tied around it. However, I didn't stop with things like the Sesame Street theme song. Apparently I did things as diverse as "Bye Bye Love" by the Everly Brothers and "Sleepin' Single in a Double Bed" by Barbara Mandrell. Songs that I really had no intellectual knowledge of, just the ability to reproduce all the necessary sounds. I've noticed some of this starting in Gage as he mimics sounds and has melodies already committed to memory as he works on replicating the actual words to the melody.
Although Terri does the lion's share of putting the little one to sleep, I've certainly had my turn at it. And one of the things that I've noticed is that Gage usually enjoys being sung to. It's a nice challenge to see how many different songs I can remember from start to finish. A few Fridays ago, Gage and I were at dinner at the Warner's household. Susie was there as well and when Gage started his little dance routine, we always call it his "Happy Feet" after what I know as the old Cab Calloway song which was redone on the Muppet Show by Kermit the Frog. Turns out Susie had sung the song when she was back in school and still remembered the majority of the lyrics. Which led to me postulate the following:

Think about all the songs you've heard on the radio that you can sing from start to finish with all the little nuances that accompany the song.
Add to this all the songs that you can sing from start to finish with the song playing on the radio
Add in all the songs that you can make it 95% of the way through with assistance from the radio, perhaps only transposing a word or two
Now top that off with the number of songs that you know a verse or the chorus
Add in the number of songs that you know from various other factions in your life that aren't related to the radio (Hymns, Girls Scout Songs, Boy Scout Songs, Campfire Songs, Church related songs, etc.)
Top it off with things like commercial jingles and theme songs.

Come up with an approximate total? Neither did I. The number went into the thousands and I lost count.
Imagine if I could harness the brainpower storing these lyrics and use it for an applied situation. I can tell you that in the second verse of the song "Bless the Broken Road" by Melodie Crittenden, there is a line that says, "I'd like to take the time I lost and give it back to you." In the more recent Rascal Flatts version of the same song, the line becomes "I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you." And yet, it takes a few seconds of staring off into space before I remember something along the lines of the denotation for Planck's constant is h. It takes another bit of staring to realize that it is Max Planck that this is named for or after and it is mostly used in Quantum mechanics.
If I could put on a pair of glasses akin to Cyclops in the X-Men series to turn that brainpower keeping all the lyrics stored in my head into a focused source of intelligence, I could be ruling the world at the moment. Why, I could think great thoughts, I could...I could...I could wile away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain. And my head I'd be scratchin' while my thoughts were busy hatchin' if I only had a brain.
Certainly this has rambled on a little longer than I expected, but when I glanced at my shelves of CD's, tapes, records, and 8-tracks...I realized that if I only knew one song on each I was already over 7,000.
And as a parting shot, with the exception of the bad over-the-top singing, Minnie Driver had no business being in the Phantom of the Opera and I'm only 20 minutes into it.

So, I got an email invitation from someone I haven't heard from in a number of years inviting me back to the madness that is buggy for a reunion of sorts. It amazes me how easily all of that stuff comes back to the forefront of my mind. Things I haven't thought about it years comes flooding back as though it happened yesterday. So, tomorrow morning I'll be sending an email making sure I can get that day off. It'll be fun to see everyone that's able to make it back. There are a bunch of kids now too so even Gage will have people to hang around. Although we'll have to make sure the current group knows there will be a lot of kids so they can create buggy clothes in smaller sizes this year.

I hate it when schedules are wrong, but at least this time I didn't have to subject myself to a 7-1 rout. I thought the Pens game was on at 7, but it turns out it was on at 2. Which really sucks because at 2 I was actually home to watch the game. Instead I was walking on the treadmill watching the director's commentary for Undercover Brother. Which, though painful sounding, was much preferred to the evening's activity of dinner with the in-laws and various extended relatives.
Oh well, I guess if I thought about it, things could get worse. Though at the moment I'm not sure how.
Oh well, on the bright side the Pens can't lose again until Wednesday.

A nice mid-afternoon edition, whilst I delay work I should be doing.
I read this article online today. Regardless of what the accident reconstruction people find out, having to plan 8 funerals is too much for anyone. I can't imagine what this family is going through. And to be perfectly selfish, I don't want to.
In between the heavy story at the top, and the one to follow I give you (especially Joe, Dwight, and Tom) this. I still say Mike and I would have made a good Steeler's tandem.
This was another article that caught my eye. Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of this tragedy. Carnegie Mellon always took an extra moment to salute the astronauts due to Judy Resnik's association with the University. After reading the article, apparently I did not watch live action, though since I don't remember the footage cutting away, I still say that I did see it live. We were home from school on a snow day. My brother and I had been out sled riding and my mom called us in to warm up and watch the launch. The gifted program that I was part of in elementary school had been doing an in-depth study on the space program and this launch in particular since every teacher in America was pulling for Christa McAuliffe. The other 5 members of the crew, Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuke, Ron McNair, and Greg Jarvis can be seen in this picture of the 7. I still have a copy of this picture stashed among my childhood memories along with a mission patch.
The one thing that I didn't need to realize after reading the article is that the astronauts didn't die from the initial fireball. They lived for another 2+ minutes (possibly conscious, though no one knows) until the capsule hit the water at 200 G's of force. I didn't need to know that to remember them as heroes. I didn't need that piece of information for historical accuracy. Thinking that they had died instantaneously and not suffered was good enough for me. There are some records that don't always need to be set straight. Knowing that there were subsequently crushed to death instead of exploded is almost a matter of tomato/tomato for the general public. I'm sure NASA needs to know, but John Q. Smith doesn't. (Wow, the tomato/tomato joke doesn't work on paper.)
Well, not much else to report on, I guess. Just felt the need to vent after reading the "myth-busting" article on the Challenger, which some people call the Gen X/Y's Kennedy Assasination (everyone remembers where they were or what they were doing). 20 years. Wow.

A bunch of loose ends today.
Working from home on a dial-up sucks. I need to get into a situation where I can do the whole wireless thing.
Did you know that a double ear infection can manifest itself within 6-12 hours with no visible signs or symptoms? Neither did I.
If you have the opportunity to pick something up that costs anywhere from $25-$65 and will likely increase in value, is it worth it to spend $52 on similar items with the hope of finding one or more of what you're looking for but with no guarantees? I know that sounds confusing. Terri wants to procure a Sidney Crosby rookie card for Gage since they both had their first year of hockey at the same time. Looking around the mall last night, I had the chance to buy an Upper Deck rookie card for $25. However, I passed and decided to order a box of Upper Deck cards for $52. I have a chance of getting multiple Sidney Cards as well as Ovechkin, Lundqvist, etc. Of course, I could simply end up with a ton of Sergei Gonchar cards. Smart deal or not?
3 out of 4 points in the last two games. Are we on the upswing?
I don't think Disney should be allowed to bastardize the Greatest American Hero theme.
I can't believe almost one month of 2006 is gone already.

I'm not sure it was due to last night's post, Gage being sick, or the abject lack of sleep, but I was feeling very surly this morning as I got ready for work. I get in the car and what discussion do I hear on the radio...who is the greatest Pittsburgh athlete? I'd give you multiple guesses for my answer, but you don't need them. So as I listen to the different callers rattle off their opinions, how many of them do you think agreed with me? One. One. And he was the radio announcer. Terry Bradshaw, Roberto Clemente (both potential choices), but Mike Webster? Rocky Blier? Franco Harris? Yes, I'm biased against hockey, but when you have an athlete of Mario's caliber and you fail to recognize that it's more than just short-sightedness or a sport to sport bias.
So, I'm pretty jacked going into work. Then I log on to the computer. And, again, I don't know if it was due to last night's post or the fact that everyone knows my hockey bias, but a lot of friends began to send me articles, podcasts, photo retrospectives, etc. about Lemieux and his retirement announcement. The following came from Susie and was located at the end of the Pittsburgh Pirates Q&A section

In closing ...

On this extraordinary week for sports in Pittsburgh (PirateFest!), I feel I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the retirement of Mario Lemieux and at least one question I had on the matter that might be of interest to fans of the baseball club:

Was there any greater athlete in the city's history?

My answer is no.

The only one who comes close, in my view, is Honus Wagner, both in terms of individual performance within a league-wide scope (eight batting titles), team championships (remember the Pirates won three National League titles before there the World Series was born), and the great intangible of having spent so much of his career in one city (all but his first three years in Louisville).

Roberto Clemente? No, with all due respect. One MVP award, four batting titles and two World Series championships is impressive, as are his many intangibles. But there are few accounts I have read that describe him as the greatest player of his era. The same cannot be said for Lemieux and Wagner.

The Super Steelers of the 1970s? Maybe the best team in NFL history, but who among them stands out? Terry Bradshaw? Joe Greene? Was either one of them the best player of his era?

And what about Ben Roethlisberger? Well, if he keeps going as he has, he might be the greatest athlete in the history of civilization. At the least, he could be viewed that way in our corner of the world within 11 days.

To date, there has been no one like Lemieux. Not in our town. He is seen by many as the most talented player to ever play his sport -- though Wayne Gretzky still gets most of those nods -- and no other athlete with a firm stake in Pittsburgh can make that claim. Not even Wagner.

And just imagine if Lemieux been healthy for even half of his 20 years since being drafted.

The city will not be the same without him on the ice.

Without a doubt I agree with his sentiments. In fact, I sent him a message thanking him.

Tom also passed along the podcast of the Mike and Mike show from ESPN and during their segment they batted around the idea of where to place Mario on the list of all time greatest hockey players. And, they came up with a point that I'm willing to concede to. Part of a superstar athlete's career and legacy is longevity. Obviously the longer you play the more you can accomplish. So, I will advocate the following two statements.

The hockey player with the greatest career is Wayne Gretzky.
The hockey player with the greatest talent is Mario Lemieux.

And I could link to any number of articles, but that would take forever so I'll just link to this retrospective.

Oh, and please can someone schedule the rest of our games this season against the Washington Capitals?

We'll Miss You!
As a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, I've been through this before. It doesn't hurt quite as much as it did the first time around, but honestly more than anything else it hurts that Mario will never have the complete respect that he deserves. He's 7th on the all-time scoring list. What no one seems to realize is that he's not even in the top 100 in games played. Wayne Gretzky played 21 seasons in the NHL. This year would have been Mario's 21st season. If you take Mario's current points per game, not even the 2 points per game that he retired with the first time, just the 1.88 that he currently has and extrapolate that out over 21 seasons, he eclipses Gretzky's scoring by almost 400 points. 400 points. And yet, he's rarely if ever considered the best player in the world. Anyone who has seen him move on the ice knows the fluidity of his game and the softness of his touch. To see him move in a healthy fashion with Sidney Crosby would have made the Penguins a force to be reckoned with. Mario, I will miss you and you have my respect. Maybe someday you'll have everyone else's as well.

Two more weeks of this. Tom, Dwight, Joe...really I'm happy for your happiness. I'm sure if I cared about football I'd feel some of that happiness. The problem is, they won, which means I'll spend the next two weeks trying not to offend the people that give a damn. I'm sure at some point I'll end up snapping and snarking at someone who gets just a little overexcited about it. (And, I can hear those people yelling, "Hello pot? This is kettle." over my exuberance and undying faithfulness for the boys of winter in the igloo.) To answer you, yes, I am a fan through and through. I celebrate their wins and I feel their losses. I get disgusted at stagnation and mistakes and I cheer phenomenal plays and superhuman effort. However, with their loss to the Flyers on Saturday, they've dropped nine in a row. And yet, I still have to get up and go to work. Gage still needs a father. When I went to the 2nd Stanley Cup rally in 1992, I didn't have to get up and go to work, but that's because I was in high school. I had to do things like help out my dad and clean my room. Nothing changed in my life because they win or lose and it's this perspective that I wish to impart to the "Steeler Nation." Seriously, I'm happy you're happy. Even the weather report incorporated the Steelers. It's sad to have to go into a self-imposed news coma just because I'm indifferent to football. Hell, Cyril Wecht gets indicted on 84 separate counts and he barely made the news. I had to search two different sites to find out that he did in fact hold up his end of the bargain and resign his newly held post after the indictment. Two more weeks. Then win or lose maybe I'll be able to stick my head out of the hole and see some news.

Wow, so I'm watching the Dennis Miller special and I can't believe how political he's become. It's interesting to see him draw both praise and criticism on George Bush and not alienate the crowd.
So I've managed to keep up with the majority of my resolutions. I just can't seem to get ahead on my reading. I'm reading on the treadmill and I try to read at night most nights, but the magazines keep pouring in and the books don't read themselves. Hopefully I can do better in the future.

I'd love to see tonight's game replayed, or at least the third period anyway, with a referee that will make three obvious calls, that for some reason didn't get made in the game that I saw.
One: A Ranger's player blocks a shot from the neutral zone and breaks his stick in half. He then proceeds to skate almost all the way to the bench holding both halves of the stick. This is a penalty. All players on the ice must immediately drop a broken stick. The only exception is the goaltender who may play with a broken stick until the whistle sounds.
Two: Jaromir Jagr snags a clear out of the air, holds it in his glove, skates four strides and then drops the puck cleanly onto the ice so that he can control it with his stick and skate into the offensive zone. This is a penalty. No player on the ice is permitted to close his hand over the puck. The only exception is again, the goaltender who is permitted to glove the pucking in his catching glove.
Three: Ranger Defensemen Marek Malik shoves an oncoming Sidney Crosby into the Ranger's net and the Ranger's goaltender is standing poised in his crease when he fails to stop a shot from Tomas Surovy. According to the NHL rulebook, there are 3 scenarios for this particular rules infraction. One, the player was intentionally looking to run into the goaltender in order to open up the net for a clear shot. This results in a penalty for the player making the contact. If a goal does happen to go in, it will not count. Two, the player was pushed into the goaltender by a defender. This will not result in a penalty, but will disallow a goal. Three, a player is pushed into the goaltender and subsequently the net, it is at the discretion of the referee whether to a.) allow the goal and b.) add a penalty to the player making contact. Apparently they decided to muddle the rules and not only disallow the goal, but add the penalty too.
With these three calls being made correctly, it would have been a very different game. And maybe, just maybe, I'd be up a lunch instead of out a lunch.

So Ziggy Palffy retired. I, among others I know, wonder if perhaps Ziggy was going to retire at the beginning of this year. Now, his retiring salary is smaller than his playing salary and we can take that money and put it towards Fleury's bonus and this new defensemen. Interesting.
I guess we'll see how this guy does tomorrow night against the Rangers. Hopefully he'll put a clean hit on Jagr and bring him back to whiny reality.
Not much else is going on today. Since I've been working pretty much non-stop at work since August, I finally got around to some clean up administrative stuff today during a welcomed lull. I filed about 1,800 email messages which is only just a little over half of what I have left. I guess that's what tomorrow is for.
Though I must say, filing email is an incredibly boring task to fill your day with.

I can't believe what an ongoing ordeal it is to put a child to bed, ok, not a child...my child. I started at 8:52. I finally managed to get him to fall asleep to the point where I could get out of the room at 10:03. 71 minutes completely gone. I could have walked 3 miles at an unhurried pace on the treadmill in that amount of time. I could have ridden almost 15 miles on the exercise bike. I could have finished all tbe bills and filing that I need to get done. I could have organized all the new magazines that have come in that I haven't had time to read yet. Amazing. And, of course, there's no guarantee that he'll even stay asleep. That's why I'm typing as fast as I can.
Friday night, while Terri was traveling for work, Gage and I headed up to the Warner's house to visit with Susie, Randy, Elizabeth, Katie, and Andrew. I can't believe how big Andrew is getting already. It seems like only yesterday we were visiting him in the hospital and he's been to his two month checkup already. Katie has an amazing vocabulary and knows a lot of songs as well. I hope Gage is doing that well after his 2nd birthday. Of course, watching Gage chase Katie through the length of the house yelling, "HUG! HUG! HUG!" was one of the funniest things I had seen in a while. It reminded me of Animal chasing a female up the aisle of the auditorium yelling, "Woman! Woman!" I guess that's why Gage's favorite muppet so far is Animal.
Saturday was a lazy day. The whole family just lounged all day long. Sunday we headed out to do some much needed shopping after church and nap time.
Monday night I went to the Penguin's game with my buddy Ray. Even though it was another disappointing loss, I thought they played well. Though I'm becoming increasingly disheartened with the blind eye the refs are turning to all the cheap shots Sidney Crosby ends up taking in the course of a game. Gonchar, the million (actually multiple million) dollar boy, actually had 5 shots and drove to the net a couple of times. Does this mean he's finally realized he's a hockey player and not a spectator? One can only hope. According to the paper today, the Pens already have a magic number of 55. Craziness.

I'm not a huge fan of Mark Messier, I think he's an overrated cheap shot artist myself. That could be a Rangers bias, or an errant Gretzky bias, or something else entirely. However, with the free preview I just happened to turn on the Oilers/Rangers game and happened upon the retirement ceremony for Messier's #11 in the rafters of Madison Square Garden. He is certainly well respected in New York. The ceremony was beyond heartfelt and players, coaches, fans, and Messier alike were all moved to tears at one point or another. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were in the stands and Dana Reeves sang a tribute to Mark and in memory of Christopher since they were both apparently huge Rangers fans. It was refreshing to see the community work that Messier did, for me it almost makes up for all the on-ice crap he got away with.
Anyway, tomorrow I'm most likely off to the Warners with Gage in tow to celebrate Elizabeth's passing of the PE exam (not physical education).
If you haven't opened your heating bill this month, don't. Just sign over your next paycheck to whatever utility company you have. It amazes me, our house is bordering on ice-box status according to some (I think it's right on the edge between chilly and comfortable) and yet this was indeed the highest heating bill I've ever seen. Hopefully this 50 degree weather will stick around for a while.
Oh well, it's early this evening, so maybe I'll get some productive things done before bed.

I actually ended up feeling a lot better today than I have in quite a while. I even managed to get some work done, which is surprising considering I don't usually do that when I'm well.
Oh, and before I forget, Matt...DirecTV is offering another free preview of Center Ice from the 10th to the 16th. It's not much hockey, but it's better than nothing, which is what you have now. They are also going to broadcast some games on NBC on Saturdays, so program the TIVO.
Ok, not much else going on, so there's not much more to report. Within the first 10 days of the year, we've had 4 different people call off sick at work. Using 1/3 of your sick days in the first 1/36 of the year doesn't make for a good ratio for the rest of the year. I guess you have to hope for a healthy spring, summer, and fall.
I guess that's all for today, otherwise I'll start ranting about how half the season is over, we're at the bottom of the conference and it'll take more than a small miracle to get into the playoffs at all, let alone go deep.

I guess the coma got to me yesterday before I could post. Oh well, my resolution is just to post more often, not everyday. I still feel like crap, but at least I'm mobile crap now.
Hopefully this will pass soon. I'm getting behind in my other resolutions.
Not much else is going on. I sit and stare at the stack of Christmas gifts and boxes on the dining room table and realize that I need to get to the post office. Though they aren't high up on my good list at the moment. Two damn cents! It's time to start doing everything online and through email.

Again into the coma tonight. I slept on and off until about 3 this afternoon and it helped but I still feel like crap. The 4 points I was hoping the Pens would steal out from Atlanta didn't happen. That's going to make things much more difficult. Oh well, that's not something I can worry about tonight. Tonight is again for the coma. Say hello to Klaus.

Just a short post tonight as I slip slowly into the effects of the coma and listen to the Q talk to me.
Hopefully Gage will allow us to sleep. Due to my cold, I didn't end up following asleep until between 1:30 and 2:00 last night. At 2:20 I woke up, but I didn't know why I woke up at first. Then I heard the screaming. Gage was screaming his head off, inconsolable. He didn't go back to sleep until 3:15 and that was between Terri and I. So, for the rest of the night, I was either dealing with little hands and arms reaching out and latching on to make sure I was still there or little feet kicking me in the back. Restful, huh?
So due to the lack of sleep, my cold took over. My chest feels as though there's a steel band that someone tightens a notch everytime I take a breath. I'm coughing to the point where I think I pulled a muscle in my back and I've spent the better part of the evening trying to locate the off switch for my nose. (Graphic, huh?)
When I woke up this morning I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and stared at the phone on the dresser. I was so close to calling off, but when you only get 3 sick days a year, it's hard to justify burning one in the first week of the new year. So, I drag myself through the shower, pull on some clothes, and put it on autodrive to head to work. When I get to work, I pulled in behind one of the project managers. Out of her passenger side climbs the guy who is living with my project manager. Adding that factoid up quickly, I realize that my project manager called off sick today. So much for just burying my head at my desk and praying for 6 to arrive.
It took me 7 hours at work just to get a handle on things to the point where they were back to the same point they were when I left last night. I actually did manage to get a huge program squared away and received the final ok at 5:58. Talk about waiting til the last minute.
Then of course I had to come home and babysit since Terri was working til 10 this evening. And that trend continues all weekend. What fun. Here's hoping the coma fixes all.

If I keep on my current exercise pace for this little family wager, by October 1st I'll have walked over 500, ridden almost 1,000 miles and spent almost an entire day working on my abs. Not bad to calculate for just the first five days of the year. I'm going to guess I'm doing more than most, though.
One thing that may prove to be my undoing is not actually dieting. I don't believe in dieting. I'm going to eat what I want, when I want. It's hard enough to follow through on something like this without having to deal with hunger pains, guilt over some forbidden snack or actually reading those god-awful FDA labels and realizing everything is going to kill me anyway. There's a real simple equation for weight loss, one my metabolism, if placated with a little physical exercise, performs to perfection. If you burn more calories than you take in, you'll lose weight. It's like a miracle. It's so easy. I can't believe more people haven't caught on to it yet. That's why I put it on this blog, to keep it secret. It's fairly obvious that no one is reading or writing nowadays on their respective blogs, so this is a safe a place as any.
I'm kidding, I guess. It's been a long week. Cleaning, exercising, and working aren't a good mix the first week of a new year. I can see now why so many people loss the will power to continue the lofty resolutions that they set. Last year I was doing pretty well, but then suddenly at the end of January I lost my first of two grandmothers in 2005. That kind of kills will power you know.

I'm not sure how those of you who have a lot of days off around the holidays deal with the whole going back to work thing. I had a three day week last week and it's coming back to haunt me this week. I already feel like I've worked two weeks within this one. It also doesn't help that all of the stuff we sent out for review two weeks ago is now coming back all at once since all the clients are also back in their office.
We drove out to Dayton last Friday to see Terri's aunt and family and pick up some furniture that they were giving to us. We had a good time and Gage enjoyed playing with the 3 dogs that they have. They have 2 retired racing Greyhounds and one dog that's so full of energy you'd think he was on speed. On the way back to Pittsburgh, we stopped to get gas and I noticed a guy standing on the corner holding a going out of business sign for Media Play. So, I manage to talk Terri into stopping since I had missed out on an ECHL game and a half-price book store stop during the trip. We walked in the door and the place looked like a demilitarized zone. There were two cashiers and lines that stretched to the back of the store. It looked a little like the aftermath in a daycare after a group of two year olds hopped up on juice went through. After glancing around, I realized that the 40% off of regular price at Media Play almost brings it down to a price that I'd pay at Best Buy or Costco. So, I tried looking around for any exceptional deals and as I was browsing, I noticed several people carrying baskets that were overflowing with DVD's. They were picking up current titles as well as box sets, etc. I realized at that point that America no longer knew how to shop for a bargain. We're on such sensory overload from all the stores that carry everything to shopping on the internet to a distinct lack of time, they were just scooping up anything in sight. I did manage to find a small number of bargains, but nothing that I'd consider exceptional. I did manage to find this. I haven't watched it yet, but I'm sure that's it's writer/director is well trained. In fact, I'd stake my diploma on it.

What a lovely win in Montreal. Way to go Penguins. It's nice that they can hang on in the four point spread game. Montreal is (or now maybe was) sitting in the last playoff spot. So for us to garner two points while giving them none is perfect. With tonight's win, we've moved out of the basement and we're now 11 points out of the last playoff spot.
Here's hoping.
So far I've managed to exercise 2 out of the 3 days this month. That's a pretty good batting average for me. And I'm 3 for 3 on this whole blogging thing.
We went to a funeral this evening for the father of one of Terri's oldest friends. It was a lot of mixed feelings. He was a pretty bitter alcoholic for a good portion of his kids' lives. It was the first time that I've been to a funeral that was held directly after the evening viewing. It was also the first time that I've been to a military themed funeral that played a pre-recorded 21 gun salute over the speaker system. In the end, whatever the feelings were, no matter how well you knew the deceased, you can't help reflect on the finality. I watch a lot of M*A*S*H reruns in the evenings as I'm winding down to go to bed. (I'm actually watching one right now.) Loretta Swit played Margaret on the show and in one of the holiday episodes, she works with Alan Alda and Mike Farrell to keep a soldier alive til the day after Christmas to spare his family. When the soldier doesn't make it, Margaret remarks "It never ceases to amaze me, one minute you're here and the next you aren't. No fanfare, no warning." And there really isn't. The ice skating rink in Germany that collapsed killed lots of children that were skating with their families. Tons of broken homes. Watching Gage walk around, hearing him talk, seeing Terri and Gage sleeping in our bed for a nap, I can't imagine losing either one of them. It's not like I'm going to get a memo on the subject. My birth certificate doesn't have an expiration.
Ok enough with the morbid. After reading DEK's blog, I'm thinking that it's a damn shame John Rocker and Barry Bonds don't play football. Think about this all star team... Ray Lewis (hopefully I got his name right), Terrell Owens, Maurice Clarett, Bonds, Rocker. It'd be a PR spin nightmare. Of course, I'm open to suggestions for the rest of the team.

Wow, two days in a row. So, new year's resolutions. Nothing special about the day, in fact, the only reason they're called New Year's resolutions is because they start on New Year's day. In fact, I may start writing Arbor day resolutions. Maybe next year. This year, I've come up with a few old ones and a few new ones. In no particular order...
1. Drop 20% of my body weight
2. Double the number of novels read in 2005 from 15 to 30 (yes, I know it's sad that I only managed to clear 15 novels in the past year, that's why I'm trying to change it.)
3. Blog a lot more often with a lot more consistency
4. Begin writing for me
5. Visit family and friends
I'm sure I have more, but those are the main ones. So far, I've managed to get on track for the first three. Here's hoping I can keep it going.
I would talk hockey, but that's a dismal prospect at the moment. Although, the tickets that Tom bought us for Christmas proved to be an incredible game. We saw 4 of the 6 Penguin goals in our end and they were sweet. It's a shame that Thibault can't find a way to close out games. I think they really could have taken the Leafs tonight, though I'm happy with the point. Of course, they're still 12 points out of a playoff spot. I hope they can get half a good streak going through the rest of January. I don't want them to get too hot and cool off for the Olympics, but I would like them to keep winning the majority of the games and getting stronger as they go. They're going to need a phenomenal stretch run to make the playoffs. So much for not talking about hockey.

A month and a half. I'm sure if anyone was actually reading this, they'd think something was seriously wrong. Anyway, it's a new year. 2006. Nothing overly momentous about it I guess. Dick Clark finally showed some sign that's he's actually an aging human. I have a much greater respect for him after watching the program last night. To show vulnerability like that takes a great deal of courage in a town like Hollywood. To say nothing of the battle that's he's had over the past year. Learning how to walk, talk, and basically live again isn't easy for anyone.
Anyway, Terri's cousin is getting married in October. So, the family has decided to take their extremely competitive nature and put it to good use. They've decided to lose weight within a support group system. So, everyone weighed in today and in Tuesday's mail, there will be somewhere between 10 and 20 letters winging their way to the keeper's house. These envelopes will contain everyone's weight as of January 1st, 2006. On October 1st, 2006 everyone weighs in again and that number is subtracted from the original number to get the percentage of weight lost (or gained, I guess). Winner take all, $50 buy-in. I've got a short list of what I'm going to do with the money. I figure I can drop 20 percent without too much of a stretch in the span of time allotted.
I'm sure there will be more mentioned at another time, but that's a good overall start for today I guess.
Perhaps tomorrow I'll discuss the obligatory resolutions (one of which I'm in the process of keeping as I type this). I plan on posting a lot more often. So, more tomorrow, don't want to post everything tonight. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, wonderful Christmas, and Happy New Year.